When I started this series which attempts to determine the projected fantasy value for prospects, I knew today’s step would be the hardest. The issue was converting various pitch grades (and control) into a workable framework for a pitcher’s overall production value. I thought I may not end up with a workable answer, but the following results have promise beyond just grading pitches.

I was able to piece together work from various articles and gave each pitch a grade based on the ERA scale. Combining per-pitch-ERA’s with a control value, it looks like we can estimate a pitcher’s overall value.

A pitching prospect is usually given a value on each of their pitches and a command and/or control grade. For example, the MLB.com’s grades for their top rated pitcher, Lucas Giolito, are:

Pitch: Grade
Fastball: 80
Curveball: 70
Changeup: 55
Control: 55

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Fantasy Projection: Wilson Ramos

Wilson Ramos had a career season this past year pretty much setting a personal career high value in all his offensive stats. Most of the changes were attributed to a LASIK surgery he had during the offseason. The surgery may have helped him quit swinging at pitches out of the strike zone (career low O-swing%) and making more contact with the pitches in the strike zone (career high Contact%). The surgery explains some of the change, I think a little bit of the change is from being a little lucky with his BABIP.

All of his stats happened before he tore his ACL in late September. The injury is going to cost him six to eight months. He will be deal with the injury at the same time as he is looking for a new team since he is a free agent. He knows his 2017 catching time will be limited, so he may be looking at a one-year deal with an AL club so he can DH.

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Player projection: Max Scherzer

He’s a stud. I don’t see any reason he won’t be the 2nd pitcher taken in 2017 drafts. There might even be a possible case to take Scherzer over Kershaw because of Kershaw’s recent health issues.

An eventual health issue is the only reason I could see for being leery of the 31-year-old. At RotoWire, I found the following chances for an ace pitcher breaking down from his ace status:

Age: Chance of still being an ace
26-29: 68%
30-32: 59%
33-37: 53%

Scherzer is in the middle of the 30-32 age group and has a decent chance for a decline. If an owner is worried about the eventual decline, maybe look to pick up a younger “Ace” who still puts up a ton of innings like Chris Sale (27-years-old, 226 IP) or Madison Bumgarner (26-years-old, 226 IP also)

Projection: 210 IP, 256 K’s, 3.00 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 16 Wins

Player Projection: Michael Fulmer

Before I like to make a projection on a young pitcher, I also like to give a quick look at them. For Fulmer, I went with his July 27th start versus Boston because it was the last start for Fulmer a decent camera angle.

Thoughts

• His windup is generic. He goes right to the plate with a 3/4 release. In the Baseball America handbook, they had him throwing “slightly across his body”, but not anymore. Looking back at some old college video, he as completely revamped his once high energy delivery.
• Fastball: 93-96 mph. Fairly basic and straight. Besides the velocity, nothing special. He does have plus command of the pitch.
• Sinker: This pitch gets labeled as a sinker, but I wonder if it is a cutter. It doesn’t get any more sink than his regular fastball but does break the same way as his slider. It is tough to notice the difference between it and his regular fastball.
• Change: 85-88 mph, really similar to his slider but with release side run while the slider has some glove-side run. Has a nice late sink at times.
• Slider: 87-89 mph. It can be a wipeout slider, but he hung it a few too many times. Again, BA graded it as a 60 and as a “plus pitch with sharp two-plane break”. MLB.com calls the pitch a curve, grades it also at 60, and just describes it as “powerful”. During this game, it was average at best.

Ignore all previous scouting reports on him. He is a completely different pitcher with a dominating changeup (66 GB% and 19% SwStr%). I am sure he feel comfortable with his average slider (42% GB%, 13% SwStr%) but the changeup is his best pitch. Its dominance was on display more as the season went on as he tripled its usage from 6% in April to 19% in September.

I didn’t find any reason for his ERA (3.06) being under his ERA Estimators (~4.00). The regression was already happening during the season with a 2.11 ERA in the first half and a 3.94 ERA in the second half.

I am not 100% sold on him but I do think he could improve by throwing his breaking balls more consistently and using his changeup even more. For next season, I will go with the following projection for him.

Projection: 190 IP, 7.5 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 3.75 ERA, 10 Wins, 1.15 WHIP

Notes:

• I could see two players getting more draft love than expected based on their postseason performance, Javier Baez (.391/.417/.609) and Francisco Lindor (.350/.350/.700). For me, the pair’s performances help to justify their 2016 seasons, but that is about it. It is too early to know if owners will and by how much overpay, but their value is something I will track this offseason.

• Shawn Kelley was removed from game five of the Division Series with a lack of feeling in his hand.

Kelley, who has had Tommy John surgery twice, said that his right elbow was fine and that the issue was a nerve problem in his fingers.

“I got ready quick and it’s cool out there,” Kelley said. “I threw that slider to Turner. I felt some numbness going down my hand. It took a second to try to get some blood flowing to it. When I threw the next pitch to Gonzalez, I didn’t have any feeling in my fingers. It was tough to pitch.”

After the game, Kelley told manager Dusty Baker that he was getting some feeling back in his fingers.

He looked to be in a good position to take over as the Nationals closer, but they may need to go find some replacement if Kelley isn’t healthy.

• Here is the last report from Garrett Richards rehab.

Garrett Richards is sitting a consistent 95-96 with power cut life. Touched 98. Showing the hard 79-80 mph hook too. #Angels

— Josh Norris 🐻 (@jnorris427) October 13, 2016

It is nice to see the fastball velocity up into his normal range. I feel in 2017 he is going to be a draft steal or be completely useless and the results will 100% center around his health.

• The Pirates have a few too many corner infielders and they want John Jaso to try out third base.

If the Pirates keep Jaso, he could play a valuable part by moving to the other side of the infield and the corner-outfield spots.

He would effectively assume the role played this year by Matt Joyce (a fellow lefty-swinging corner outfielder) while taking over some of Sean Rodriguez’s responsibilities as an occasional third baseman and late-inning replacement at first base.

Jaso also could spell Bell or platoon with David Freese at first. At third, he could share time with Freese behind starter Jung Ho Kang, potentially creating an interesting four-way rotation that also includes shortstop Jordy Mercer.

I think there is some value to be gained in mix leagues by guessing correctly who ends up with a full-time job. Besides the above names, highly touted prospect Josh Bell is also in the first base mix. In deep leagues, I would stay away from all of them.

• Wilson Ramos will be out 6-8 months after having knee surgery. I think his value will be in leagues with a lot of DL slots where he can be benched for a couple of months and then used if he comes back healthy.

I will continue to help define how to value a prospect for fantasy purposes. Last week, I examined how major league position players’ production lines up with the standard scouting grades. Today, I go the other way and look at how graded prospects perform in the majors.

I believe I am making this study about two years too soon. I would love for there to be more MLB information after the player received his grades and his 4-5 year production. I don’t have that luxury right now. I feel any answer I come up with will be a nice anchoring point but will need to be adjusted later.

To do this study, I took the grades given by Baseball America (2011 to 2014) and MLB.com (2013 to 2014). With each of these players, I looked at those who had 300 plate appearances in their career. With this fairly encompassing group, I would only able to match of 118 seasons. In some of these cases, the same player was compared. For example, both BA and MLB had their own 2013 grades for Xander Boegaerts. Like I said, a person can shoot about 20 different holes in this study, but I am just working with what I have been given so far.

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Today it starts. I am going to try to find an easier way to take current prospect evaluations and turn them into usable information for fantasy owners. Since none of the prospect information is far from perfect, the following will be an imperfect science, but hopefully, some of the prospect guesswork can be removed. The hope is to eventually see a prospect’s grade and/or ranking and have an idea of what type of production to expect from the player. Additionally, I plan on having a method of taking prospect grades and comparing it to present major leaguers.

From the little work I have done, I find it is so much easier to work with hitters versus the pitchers. I am going to start with them for a couple of weeks getting a decent groundwork done with them. When I get to the pitchers, the work is going to be a little slower moving as I translate pitch grades to a players value.

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2017 Preseason Assessment: Jonathan Villar (Fantasy MVP)

Villar was a generally not sought after in most leagues since many people expected him to struggle and get replaced by Orlando Arcia around the Super 2 deadline. I picked him up in Tout Wars as a fill in for Jung-ho Kang since Kang was expected to miss a couple months after having surgery on his leg. To say Villar filled in just fine is an understatement. He had 19 HR, 62 SB, and a .285 AVG. In the final rankings, he ended up with being the 4th highest ranked hitter.

For next season. I expect some heavy regression from the 25-year-old, but I don’t expect him to fall off a cliff. His batting average has been fairly steady the last two seasons with a .284 value in 2015 and .285 in 2016. With his speed, I could see him continue to post BABIP around .350 so I will go with a .270 AVG. For his walk rate, a 10% value will work so a .345 OBP seems reasonable.

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First, a few words about my offseason writing at Rotographs. Besides reporting any possible relevant fantasy news, I plan on systematically going through two groups of players and work on their 2017 values. I will start at the top of the 2017 rankings and also somewhere in the middle and work my way down each list. I may be able to do a handful of players each article or I might by limited to just the two players. Either way, I will start putting together a 2017 draft ranking.

Additionally, I will try to follow Eno’s schedule for the other writers (e.g. players on playoff teams for the next couple of weeks). If they are looking at outfielders for that specific week, I will also look at outfielders.

The other project I will work through is being able to put a better evaluation on prospects for fantasy purposes. I will use the evaluations of various prospect writers and publications and put their evaluations into something which can be used in fantasy circles. I have some ideas of what I want to accomplish, but I am sure there will be some roadblocks and detours on the way. I will start this series Friday.

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A.J. Cole Breakdown

The National’s righty made a spot start for the Nationals on August 22 and allowed four runs over seven innings of work. To start getting a profile of Cole, here are his pitching comps using his 2016 MLB.com grade. Additionally, I included his previous grades which I will discuss in a bit.

The pitcher list isn’t that exciting with most pitchers falling into the #4 to #5 starter range.

The big note I took away from the grades, was his declining fastball grade from MLB.com. It was 70 in 2014, 65 in 2015, and 55 this year. Additionally, here are the velocity speeds stated in the Baseball America Handbook for each year.

Season: Fastball Speed Description
2014: “… sits at 94-95 mph and regularly hits 97.”
2015: “… pitched comfortably at 91-93 … and bumped 96.”
2016: “… sits comfortably in the low 90s, pushing as high as 96 mph …”

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Valuing Danny Duffy

Putting a future value on Danny Duffy is fairly difficult because he has never performed like he is right now. Here are some of his stats after his one run complete game last night.

• 9 wins
• 2.82 ERA, 3.14 FIP
• 10.0 K/9
• 1.8 BB/9
• 1.0 HR/9

Let’s start with the biggest changes and the one value which sticks out, the 10.0 K/9. Duffy is getting more strikeouts by getting hitters to swing at his pitches at career high rate (52%) and they make contact at a career-low rate (72%). This dual combination has led to a career high swinging strike rate (14%). By using the simple rule K% = 2 * SwStr%, Duffy is projected to have a 28% K% and it is 29% this season. With these matching up, I expect little regression with his strikeout rate.

A search for why the transformation as occurred begins with a 1.5 mph increase in his fastball velocity. The velocity increase raised his swinging strike rate on the pitch to a 13.6%. With the fastball velocity increase, his other pitches are playing up with his slider (15%) and change (21%) being at career highs in swinging strike percentage. I am not sure why these two pitches are performing better this season. They made be playing off his fastball as hitters are concentrating on his fastball. The pitches have a bit more movement and this could be the cause. Also, he may have changed his deception some. Or it could be a combination of several factors. All I know it is working.

Besides the increase strikeouts, Duffy continues to bring is walk rate under control which hurt his value early in his career. In 2012, his BB/9 was at 5.9 and this season it is a third of that value (1.8). The drop in walks along with the increase in strikeouts put his season’s K%-BB% at 23% for 6th best in the league.

The final aspect to understand with Duffy is he lives up in the strike zone and will give up a ton of fly balls which hurts and helps him. More fly balls mean more home runs and he will likely always have an HR/9 at or above 1.0. One the good side, the additional fly balls lead to more easy outs and he will normally have a suppressed BABIP (.286 on career) and an ERA less than his FIP (3.58 ERA vs 3.98 FIP in his career).

The big question is if Duffy can keep the high strikeout and low walk values going forward. It’s tough to tell, but we still have a month and a half of starts to monitor. Additionally, Duffy pitches at a spring training park with a Pitchf/x system installed so we will have an idea where his velocity sits next spring. I see his 2017 value being a major discussion point this offseason.

What’s left of Carlos Gomez?

Gomez was designated for assignment by the Astros and may end up a free agent soon. He was a top hitter from 2012 to 2014 when he averaged over 20 HR, 35 SB, and .270 AVG per season.

Examining his stats, the two big keys to his decline are his declining power and complete inability to make contact this season. With his power, it climbed steadily until he was 27 and has been falling fast as seen here.

Additionally, his Contact% (66%) abruptly fell to a career low. Gomez has always been a free swinger, so with his ability to make contact deteriorating, he has seen his strikeout rate jump 10 percentage points to 31% and batting average drop to .210.

Looking forward, overcoming both factors is going to be tough for him. He has not been able to stop the three-year decline in power. Even if he does, how much will it jump up? I don’t see him turning this issue around much. I could see him make quite a bit more contact since the drop was all at once. Even if the contact rate increase, will the lack of power just make him a bottom of the order player which produces some stolen bases?

With him, I am watching two items. Where he ends up this year and does that team try to make an improvement in his contact rate. The second is what his spring training and early season contact rate are next year. Right now, I don’t see him being productive and should only be taken as a late-round flier.

Michael Pineda’s Sky High ERA

Michael Pineda has seen a nice steady rise in his velocity to go with a 10.4 K/9 and a reasonable 2.6 BB/9.

With these great numbers, Pineda has a 5.07 ERA because he is getting hit hard as seen by his 1.4 HR/9 and .338 BABIP. The biggest issue I see with Pineda is he is basically just a fastball-slider pitcher (rarely throws a bad change). Hitters are holding off swinging at the slider (which he rarely throws for strikes) and looking for his fastball. Here are the triple slash lines when he is ahead, even, or behind in the count.

Behind: .345/.510/.628
Even: .312/.319/.563
Ahead: .186/.192/.314

He becomes dominant once ahead, but hitters are sitting on his fastball in all other counts because it is the only pitch he can throw for strikes. Unless he can start throwing the slider for strikes or develop a third league average pitch, he is going to continue to get hit hard.

Leaders in Home Runs Plus Stolen Bases

In this series, I often talk about player covariance — or the effect that a player’s performance has on his teammates and opponents — and its importance in building DFS lineups. This week, I’d like to expand on some nuances within that topic by looking at a visualization of this phenomenon.

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